The Last Kid Left

When Martin Krug, chief of the Eagle Mount, N.J., PD and the hero of Baldwin’s well-crafted mystery, responds to an automobile accident call, he doesn’t expect to find 20-year-old Nick Toussaint Jr. in the driver’s seat with two dead bodies in the trunk. Nick confesses to the murders, but the sheriff has his doubts. Since the murders happened at the victims’ house in Claymore, N.H., Krug has no jurisdiction. When Krug retires a few days later, he decides to join the Claymore public defender in charge of proving Nick’s innocence. The suspicious connection between Claymore’s sheriff and Nick—namely, that the sheriff’s daughter, Emily, is Nick’s girlfriend—is just the beginning of a newsworthy scandal, to which the leaking on the internet of nude photos of Emily, meant to comfort Nick in jail, adds fuel. Baldwin (You Lost Me There) relegates the actual murder and investigation to the background, but readers who like plenty of character analysis in their crime fiction will be satisfied. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit. (June)